Since 1994, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has pumped $6.5 billion into global health research and projects around the world. Here’s how some of that money has been used in Massachusetts.

Research by Nicole Gauvin

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest foundation in the United States, with $29 billion in assets. The organization has played a major role in injecting new life into the research on neglected diseases like malaria and tuberculosis. Leading up to last week’s International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Canada, it made another big grant announcement: $500 million over five years to the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Closer to home, here are the Massachusetts institutions that have benefited from Gates Foundation grants.

Gates Foundation grants of more than $1 million awarded to Massachusetts institutions for work in global health, 1996-2006

Source: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

1. Harvard University

Grant Amount: $44,712,896 over five years

Date Awarded: July 10, 2000

“To demonstrate an effective and transferable program model (DOTS-Plus) for the control of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (TB) in Peru and assist the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the development of an integrated strategy for global TB elimination”

2. Management Sciences for Health (nonprofit group based in Cambridge, MA)

Grant Amount: $29,957,826 over five years

Date Awarded: July 10, 2000

“To provide sustainable access to priority drugs, vaccines, and essential health commodities in underserved areas”

3. Harvard University

Grant Amount: $25,000,000 over five years

Date Awarded: October 2, 2000

“To support AIDS prevention in Nigeria”

4. Harvard University

Grant Amount: $18,768,660 over five years

Date Awarded: July 12, 2005

“To address Grand Challenge #13 by developing valid, reliable and comparable measurements of population health that will provide essential inputs to planning, resource allocation, program implementation, monitoring progress and evaluation of interventions”

5. Harvard University and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Grant Amount: $18,000,000 over five years

Date Awarded: July 19, 2006

“To establish large-scale consortia to address critical challenges in designing vaccine candidates capable of eliciting strong and long-lasting protective cellular immune responses against HIV”

6. Pathfinder International (nonprofit group based in Watertown, MA)

Grant Amount: $8,500,000 over five years

Date Awarded: March 9, 2004

“To mitigate the effects of HIV infection by providing sex workers and their clients with behavior change communication and access to essential products and services in Maharashtra, India”

7. Harvard University

Grant Amount: $7,577,169 over four years

Date Awarded: June 27, 2005

“To address Grand Challenge #3 by developing a new paradigm for needle-free vaccination based on novel nanotechnology that permits the formation of low-density aerosols”

8. WGBH Educational Foundation

Grant Amount: $6,000,000 over three years

Date Awarded: June 4, 2002

“To produce a television series on global health”

9. Management Sciences for Health

Grant Amount: $2,740,000 over three years

Date Awarded: May 24, 1999

“To develop pilot reproductive health programs in urban, rural, and mountain tribal environments in India”

10. Harvard University

Grant Amount: $2,288,816 over four years

Date Awarded: January 6, 2005

“To support the development and evaluation of human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccines and related diagnostics”

11. Pathfinder International

Grant Amount: $1,460,000 over seven years

Date Awarded: April 1, 1999

“To increase awareness of the need for reproductive health services for adolescents in India and improve the service capacity of local organizations”

12. Harvard University

Grant Amount: $1,190,527 over four years

Date Awarded: November 7, 2005

“To strengthen US news coverage of preventable infectious disease in Africa”

Editor’s note: Read a related conversation with Harvard malaria researcher Dyann Wirth about the impact of the Gates Foundation on global health research.